Developing a servant’s heart

Developing a servant’s heart is part of our training in the area of social science. How do we fit into the concept of community? What can we do for our world? Can we really make a difference in our corner of the world? What does it mean to be the hands and feet of Jesus? The activities listed below have been the effort of single classes or school wide events.

…whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slave—just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many. Matthew 20: 26-28

…I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me. Matthew 25: 40

Over the past several years, VCS students have shared with our school, our community and our world by…

1. Establishing “grandfriends” with residents of a local nursing home.
2. Sending books written in Spanish to a Christian school in the Dominican Republic.
3. Financially and prayerfully supporting our own students and staff who have gone on mission trips to Russia, Mexico, and Kyrgyzstan.
4. Meeting academic goals such as completing math activities and receiving pledge money to contribute to a Muscular Dystrophy foundation.
5. Making Christmas gifts for residents in a local retirement complex.
6. Singing Christmas carols and handing out gospel tracts in the apartment complexes of local retired folks.
7. Collecting money for scarves, gloves, and hats and sending homemade cards to a children’s orphanage in Nepal.
8. Collecting money for pajamas for children in Nepal orphanage.
9. Taking homemade cookies and words of thanks to our local police station and firehouse.
10. Writing and sending letters of encouragement to our President.
11. Collecting canned and dry food and frozen turkeys (or money) for needy families Thanksgiving baskets. (Skilton House Ministries)
12. Joining with other believers to pack bags of food for distribution to needy families in the Philadelphia area.
13. Having older students assist younger students in the lunchroom.
14. Having a buddy system between the younger grades and older students which allows for read aloud time, project sharing, singing together, and having fun.
15. Electing VCS Senators who assist in school activities such as Open House tours, hosting the annual talent show, and sharing student concerns with the administration and faculty.

Specific grade level content

Kindergarten

The reading curriculum provides cross-curricular opportunities for social studies. The children are exposed to the following ideas:

• People I Love
• Where We Live, Places to Go, Jobs We Do

Grade 1

• Where We Live: our homes, neighborhoods, communities, the United States and sharing the earth
• We Belong: Family and friends, people together, getting along, and making choices
• People at Work: Our needs and wants, moving goods and people, money here and around the world
• Our World: Canada and Mexico
• It Happened in America: the past, time lines, the first people in America, Christopher Columbus, Santa Fe, Pilgrims at Plymouth, a country of many people, New York City
• Americans Celebrate: Holidays for presidents, special days for our country, special days for families, celebrating spring, symbols say USA

Grade 2

• We the People: a city problem, our government, our country's capital, our flag, flags of many countries
• Earth, Our home: 50 states-one country, a world of countries, maps, our natural resources
• Places and Holidays: Special Americans, special places in our country, special holidays, celebrating in many countries, celebrating in the USA
• Discovering Our Past: America's first people, travel to America, a new country, a country at war, the country grows
• A Working World: A trip to the market, from the farm, map routes, from the factory, trading goods, work-money-you

Grade 3

• Geography skills
• Natural Resources
• Native Communities: Mesa Verde then and now;
  Jamestown then and now: time lines
• A Spanish Mission in San Francisco then and now: reading bar and line graphs
• A New Country is Born...America: Ben Franklin, George Washington, our flag, then and now
• Countries have Capitals: Our nation's capital and Senegal's capital

Grade 4

• Maps and Globes
• Pennsylvania Yesterday...Pennsylvania Land and Climate, Pennsylvania Regions; Pennsylvania Studies Weekly newspaper
• First People of Pennsylvania
• State projects
• US capitols and states by regions
• Pennsylvania: the colony and the Nation
• Pennsylvania Cities
• Pennsylvania Moves Ahead
• The Problem of Slavery
• Pennsylvania Facts Packet

Grade 5

• The Turning of the Century: Immigration: what makes an "American?"
• 1910-1929: World War I, the twenties, Russian Revolution;
  The Depression, Rise of Hitler, World War II
• The Forties
• The Fifties, Suez Crisis, the Cold War
• The Sixties, Vietnam, Revolution, Fashion, the Beatles, Kennedy
• Seventies and Eighties, Nixon to Regan, Margaret Thatcher, austerity, Gulf War
• the Nineties Technology
• The Millennium

Grade 6

• Egypt
• Greece
• Rome
• Medieval Europe